There, the reporter saw an unnatural patch of blackness — almost a silhouette that rested against the wall.
Again, the reporter, secret agent of The Shadow, knew that his chief was close at hand.
Cardona’s swarthy face was grim. The detective looked at Clyde Burke and spoke.
“Here’s the story,” he declared. “Clussig came into his apartment. Someone could have entered, but it’s obvious that Clussig found the place empty. He went into the inner room and bolted the door. He began to work at the desk. He died from carbon-monoxide poisoning.
“That gas couldn’t have been there when Clussig came in. It generated while he was here. Somebody arranged it. There’s only one answer. The gas must have been piped into the place. Wait until my men arrive. We’ll find out.”
IT was not long before the detectives appeared. Their arrival was preceded by a distant clang of the elevator door. Clyde Burke knew well that The Shadow would glide from the outer door when he heard that noise. The sleuths, when they reported to Cardona, said nothing of having seen any one.
“We’re going to go through this little room,” explained Cardona. “Take everything apart — all the books come down — but it all goes back like you found it. Get going.”
Clussig’s body was removed. Clyde Burke watched the work that followed.
Detective Cardona had the status of an acting inspector. He performed his work with unfailing method. In the course of one hour, detectives had completely dismantled the room. All the objects moved had been replaced. Nothing had been neglected. Even the desk, at Cardona’s order, had been taken apart. Yet Cardona stood dejected as he surveyed the reconstructed scene.
“We haven’t found a thing,” he said, as he shook his head. “All we’ve learned is that there was no possible way for that deadly gas to get in here. It beats me, Burke.”
The ace detective went over by the desk, and moved a few notebooks to the correct position in which they first had been. As he stepped back, he noted the wastebasket standing beneath the desk.
He tipped it on its side, pointing inward at an angle — the way it had been when he had first seen it.
“That’s all,” decided Cardona. “I’m coming back here, Burke, to look for clews. But I’ve missed the one thing I was sure must be here — either jets or a tank. How that carbon monoxide entered this place is a mystery.”
Motioning to his crew, Cardona led the way from the apartment, after closing the inner door and bolting it by reaching through the panel. He locked the outer door, and the squad followed the chief. Clyde Burke went with the detectives.
The reporter threw a sidelong glance toward the dim blind end of the hall behind him. There he fancied that he once again saw a formation of preternatural blackness — the indication of a hidden, spectral shape.
Mystery had surrounded the death of Merle Clussig. Clyde Burke had watched the thorough search for hidden gas jets. Like Detective Cardona, the reporter was baffled. Yet Clyde knew one fact that Cardona did not.
All during this exhaustive search, hidden eyes had been watching. Where clews could escape the cleverest of detectives, they could not elude the keen eyes of that supersleuth known as The Shadow.
The apartment of death was empty. It had been rearranged in its original condition. The Shadow had seen the work; now it would be The Shadow’s turn to institute his own investigation.
Crime had struck tonight. Clyde Burke was confident that The Shadow, emerging from blackness, would find a starting point to war against the insidious brain which had so amazingly designed the death of Merle Clussig!
CHAPTER V. THE SHADOW’S DISCOVERY
SHORTLY after Clyde Burke had departed with the detectives, a shape moved at the end of the corridor outside of Merle Clussig’s apartment. The tall figure of The Shadow came in view. It seemed to emerge from darkness like a materialized form. Even in the light, The Shadow’s appearance savored of the incredible.
A being clad completely in black; one whose visage was invisible beneath the brim of a slouch hat; a personage whose hands were incased in gloves of inky hue — The Shadow appeared only as a mass of darkness shaped to human form.
The black cloak swished as its wearer advanced. A lining of deep crimson flashed momentarily. The Shadow stopped before the door of the apartment; metal clicked as his hand pressed a pick into the lock. The door opened. The black form glided through. The door closed.
Within the apartment of death, The Shadow produced a small flashlight. A bright spot of illumination — a flickering disk of silver-dollar size — pointed the way toward the room where Merle Clussig had died.
The Shadow’s hand crept through the broken panel and drew back the bolt. A few moments later, this mysterious investigator stood within the second room.
The light, flickering intermittently, traveled throughout the room. Sharp eyes peered from darkness, studying the various spots where the detectives had made their search. The brilliant rays centered upon the desk; they showed the chair in which Merle Clussig had been seated when he had met his doom.
With a brief inspection, The Shadow had observed that Cardona’s search had been a thorough one. Had special pipes or hose apparatus been responsible for the injection of the deadly gas, the detectives would certainly have discovered it. Until the mode of gaseous influx had been ascertained, there could be no beginning of a clew.
The Shadow’s purpose was to solve this problem, to learn whether the plotters of Merle Clussig’s death were merely clever contrivers at concealment or ingenious persons who had discovered some baffling method of releasing carbon monoxide.
The flashlight continued to glimmer in the region of the desk. Cardona had dismantled that piece of furniture. He had discovered nothing within it. In such action, the detective had unwittingly followed the course of reasoning which The Shadow now was taking.
The closer the outlet to the victim, the more surely and more rapidly would the deadly gas accomplish its effect. With this fact in view, The Shadow began a methodical examination of the spot where Clussig had been.
The tiny light shone on the telephone; it passed to the surface of the desk, then to the chair; finally, it flickered beneath the desk. It revealed the overturned wastebasket. A black-gloved hand came into the sphere of light. The Shadow drew the wastebasket from beneath the desk.
The wastebasket was of metal construction. It was an ordinary trash container, with no possibility of special compartments. Empty, the basket showed solid walls.
The keen eyes, as they viewed those metal sides, spied something which Joe Cardona had completely failed to notice. The walls of the basket were marked with a blackish stain.
The eyes of The Shadow studied the evidence that lay before them. It was impossible to believe that an open-topped wastebasket could have contained a quantity of free carbon monoxide. There was nothing which could have retained the deadly gas. Yet the soft laugh which came from the hidden lips above the light was one that indicated a sudden understanding.
The flashlight disappeared. The wastebasket clicked as an invisible hand replaced it beneath the desk. A slight swish was the only sound which marked the passage of The Shadow from the room.
What had The Shadow learned that would prove of value? Only The Shadow knew. His keen brain had gained a clear inkling to the method whereby Merle Clussig had been so effectively murdered. The aftermath was to come.
SOME time later, a click sounded in a darkened room. A bluish light shone upon the polished surface of a table. The hands of The Shadow — no longer gloved — appeared beneath the light. Upon the third finger of the left hand glimmered a mysterious gem of deep, color-changing sparkles.